Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Since I first spotted a galley of Jonathan Franzen's new novel, Freedom, on the F Train months ago, in the hands of a Brooklyn-bound woman, I've been anticipating its release. So when I got the announcement via Facebook that St. Mark's Bookshop would be extending its hours to sell the book beginning at midnight last night, I figured I had to be there to capture the momentous occasion.

As we know, New Yorkers get excited when a new product is first released to the market. They line up for hours outside Apple stores for new iPhones and iPads. They sleep outside big boxes like IKEA the night before a grand opening, just to be the first inside. They even do it for books, camping by the doorways of bookstores on the nights when fresh Harry Potters come screaming into the world.

So I figured, with all the Franzen hoopla, there would at least be a small line.

But there was no line. Not even Greg Packer, the guy who camps out in line for everything, was there. Shortly before midnight, about 6 people were in the bookstore, milling about. Billie Holiday sang the blues over the loudspeakers. The shop had a hollow feeling. It was sort of depressing.

Still, I imagined that when the books arrived, there would be some fanfare. They'd be wheeled out on a festooned palette, in a big stack like a frosty birthday cake. Bibliophiles would suddenly appear at the door to grab up multiple copies for posterity. Hey, this guy was just on the cover of TIME magazine! But that didn't happen.

When the clerk announced, in a weary, bemused voice, "Ladies and gentleman, it is midnight and we are now legally permitted to sell to you Jonathan Franzen's Freedom, the book that the New York Times just cannot stop praising," there was a barely discernible ripple of acknowledgment from the patrons. He placed a handful of copies on the New Fiction shelf, mixed in among the other authors whose names begin with F.

One young woman perked up. I think she might have exclaimed, "Oh boy!" She was the first to grab a copy and the first to buy it.

"How does it feel to be the first person to own that book in New York City?" the clerk asked her.

"Am I really the first?"

"Well, the first to own it legally."

Then a couple of young men sidled up, real casual, as if they weren't there for one reason only. They picked up the book and inspected it. They turned a few pages, looking unimpressed as they pretended to be making a decision. They bought it, too. Then another. And maybe one more. One guy left without even looking at it. And then the store was pretty much empty.

Maybe if it was a new flavor of cupcake, people would have been there.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Earlier in August I reported that the defunct Gordon Novelty Shop had been unsheathed. For a brief, shining moment, we were able to enjoy that gorgeous facade once more. A commenter then tipped us to the fact that Gordon's demolition has begun--and a trip to the site confirmed that the death shroud has indeed been lowered.

This area just north of Union Square was once filled with novelty shops. If you scroll through microfilm images of those streets at the Municipal Archives, in the grainy shots you will see the word NOVELTY everywhere, along with: Balloons, Bingo Games, Favors, Party Hats, Bridge Prizes, and Souvenirs.

I imagine that walking through those streets, at mid-century, must have been like walking into the world behind the mesmerizing novelty ads in old comic books. Just looking at those pages could fire the imagination for untold hours.

Like "Appetizing," which I wrote about here, the word "Novelty" (and its plural "Novelties") is a rare find on a New York sign. Many have vanished, some remain.

Here is the Gordon storefront before it was gone.

The plural appears today on a floral supply shop in the Flower District, and probably doesn't refer to hand buzzers and whoopie cushions.

When Anthropologie moved into B. Shackman's favors and novelties shop on 5th Avenue, they left the plaque on the wall. It's still there, but the heavy wooden revolving door was removed. Shackman's, as I remember it, was also not the fake-vomit breed of novelty shop, but sold mostly dollhouse furnishings and greeting cards.

Friday, August 27, 2010

350 West Broadway has a lot to say. Words upon words wrap around its glass street-level exterior, the stuff of luxury condos. All that condo-porn verbiage.

There's more on the website, where the pages tell little stories starring a very superior couple having very superior conversations. There's even one where they poke fun at the inflated nature of other luxury condos' ad copy...

"The language was farcical. 'Here’s a good one!' she said excitedly, moving herself into an upright position in order to make the best delivery possible. 'Enwrap yourself in ultimate luxury.' She collapsed in a paroxysm of laughter. 'Enwrap! Who talks like that?'"

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Fedora's new owner: "I'm already bracing myself for the criticism that I'm going to get. People are going to say, 'It's not like Fedora, Fedora looked nothing like this.' ... I'm choosing to keep the name because it's a great name. I'm keeping the bar because it's brilliant, the original bar from 1917. Aside from that, it's now our restaurant." [Esquire]

If you haven't watched them yet, these mini-docs of city people are great. [13]

Williamsburg hipsters, MTV wants you: "Do you own skinny jeans, old school chucks, cabbie hat, the 70's vest, an ironic t shirt or hat, a fitted sweater, flannel shirt, or chunky lens-less glasses? Do you drink PBR, have an ironic mustache, have a blog that allows you to post pictures you took with your digital camera? ... Smoke Parliaments? Got any cool tattoos? Perhaps one of a star, maybe on your wrist or elbow? Own a vintage dress or have an awesome beard?" [Craigslist]

He writes, "When they were demolishing a row of dry goods stores on Union Square between Fourth & Broadway, I noticed that one of the buildings had a huge, ancient ventilation system on its roof and a odd fire-escape out back. Sure enough, when the building was peeled away, the last remnants of the Union Square Theatre were revealed, its finishes all brown with smoke, but still intact. There was a lovely painting in the round center medallion but scavengers beat me to it. This was in December of 1992. The hideous building that once held Virgin Records replaced this."

The folks at Cinema Treasures tell us this structure was "built in 1870 as a variety theater called the Union Square Theater. In 1893 Keith and Albee purchased the theater for use as a vaudeville theater. It became a movie house in 1908."

Cinema Treasures reader Lost Memory offers the following pair of vintage photos of the theater when it became a BF Keith's, reporting that the first moving pictures were shown here in 1896.

The theater's demolition was announced in 1989. Christopher Gray in the New York Times reported then, "With a combination of burlesque, ballet, comedy and pantomime, the Union Square Theater was advertised as 'the model temple of amusement.'"

Later, as B.F. Keith's, "in 1908 it was converted entirely to films, ultimately 'dabbling in the most dubious activities that a picture house can indulge in,' according to J. C. Furnas in The New York Herald Tribune of 1932, alluding to racy films and sex lectures."

In 1936, the theater was broken up and sealed off to make room for stores and office space. But somewhere in the new construction's recesses, theatrical glories lived on.

Wrote Christopher Gray, "The ceiling still has its old gold and ivory paint and two large cupolas, into which huge ventilation ducts have been inserted. The only part that is not visible is the proscenium arch, and it is conceivable that the arch and its Shakespeare medallion are still intact. Short of a serious documentation effort by the owner, only demolition promises a really complete view of what is left of the old Union Square Theater."

In New York Magazine's "Glass Stampede" round-up, Justin Davidson recalls the corner, saying, "Davis Brody Bond’s apartments are basically a support for Metronome, the ever-puzzling steam-breathing artwork that tells time but remains silent about history. The legendary Union Square Theater stood on this site and should never have been allowed to rot."

With the movement of Habib's Place from Avenue A and 6th, the removal of his sign revealed an under-sign: France's Beauty Salon.

I can't really tell you anything about France's Beauty Salon, only that I took a photo of it sometime around 1995--I did have one more shot in my East Village 90s collection. Here's what it looked like.

I love this serious, Slavic-looking woman standing there among the fabulous 80s-style beauties with their Aqua-Netted manes. Is she the eponymous France(s)?

If I recall correctly, France's was one of those places where older ladies would go to get their hair set. Maybe some mustache bleaching. Maybe a blue rinse. Makes me wonder: Where in the East Village can you get a good blue rinse these days?

Are you a pathetic loser who suffers from the socially crippling stigma that comes from reading books alone in public? Now there's help! The New York Times and 1 out of 10 Manhattan dermatologists recommend a simple cure: Buy an iPad. [Grumbler]

Digging back into my small archive of print photos from the early/middle 1990s, we did Times Square, and now here's the East Village collection scanned. It's only 7 photos, but it shows some of what was here 15 years ago.

All but one of the places in these images has vanished.

Kurowycky Meats: A Halloween ghost hangs with the meat in the window, back before meat was outlawed and Kurowycky had to hang plastic sausages in its place--back before Kurowycky closed and became Kim's. They used to trim the fat off my chicken.

Leshko's Coffee Shop: Of the buzzing flies and cakes under foggy plastic covers, of the late-night breakfasts, and the junkies slipping into the bathroom to shoot up. Before it became the hideous noise-fest it is today.

"Back Rent Kills East Village Mom-and-Pop Shop Village Fabrics" and "the whole neighborhood is going to crap." [RS] via EVG

Spike Lee: "the Brooklyn I grew up in is not the Brooklyn today... I just think that when you move into a neighborhood, you can’t necessarily come in and just change all the culture at the same time. That’s my only problem with gentrification." [TONY]

Grumbling about life in our Autistic Age, about which Dr. Alan Kirby writes: "Those born before 1980 may see, not the people, but contemporary texts which are alternately violent, pornographic, unreal, trite, vapid, conformist, consumerist, meaningless and brainless." [Grumbler]

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

"Windsor Terrace parents are throwing a tantrum at the Oak & the Iris Café, claiming that they have no right to cancel their weekly sing-a-longs just because their precious kids were breaking property." [Gothamist]

Yesterday, Grieve reminded us of the anniversary of the death of Merlin, the homeless man who made his spot for 8 years outside the Con Ed substation on Avenue A and 6th St., and who died there August 16, 1996.

I thought I'd post these two color photos I took of Merlin's memorial in the summer of '96, which I've recently scanned from prints.

A few years ago this week, Bob Arihood posted photos of Merlin on his blog, Neither More Nor Less.

Bob recalls: "A wake and vigil of considerable moment, lasting for the better part of 2 weeks, was held in the neighborhood at Merlin's corner. Some nights the sidewalk and street around the memorial were so densely packed with people that it seemed that everyone in the neighborhood and the surrounding communities was attending, crowded together, all kinds of folks, from all professions and callings, from high and low paying their respects to Merlin."

Merlin's birth name was Paul Hogan. I remember him as a friendly guy, always regally reclined in a pile of clothing and bedding, with books spilling all around him. Young people, girls mostly, sat beside him to talk. He had the bearing of a sage. You wanted to know him.

"To strangers," wrote the Times about him, "he is but another intrusion on the East Village's gritty streetscape, a reason to avert their eyes. But to many local residents, he is a cherished asset: a timekeeper, a message center, a town crier and a source of good, solid conversation."

New York Magazine, 9/96

New York Magazine wrote about the memorial, saying that when the news of Merlin's death was announced on Con-Ed's brick wall, "Shocked locals scurried to nearby bodegas for candles and flowers. Even rowdy Long Islanders and New Jerseyites stopped and stifled themselves for a moment of silence."

Could such a memorial happen for a homeless person in the East Village today?

In Three Lives bookshop recently, I came across The Lonely Phone Booth. Technically, it's for children, but anyone nostalgic for the city, and especially its lost phone booths, will enjoy it. Publishers Weekly called it "Cultural history of the best sort."

Author Peter Ackerman agrees. I asked Mr. Ackerman some questions about his book. He answered.

Q: What inspired you to write the tale of one of New York's last remaining phone booths?

A: I was walking past the phone booth with my sons, who were 6 and 3 at the time, and the 3 year old said "Why is that phone in a box?" It seemed so funny that he had no idea what it was. I've had some major life experiences in phone booths: calling my parents when I was cast in my first New York play, having endless discussions with my college girlfriend until I ran out of quarters, receiving collect calls from her while I was in a phone booth and she was in France (we got away with that a bunch of times until an operator broke through and said "I know what you're doing!" and cut us off.). And then I learned that there are only 4 proper phone booths left in Manhattan. So I found myself imagining what it must feel like to be one of those phone booths, once so central to people’s lives, but now on the verge of extinction.

Q: What do you think we've lost as public pay phones have vanished, as people have come to rely on cell phones?

A: It’s funny: it used to be that you could see people in pay-phones, but not hear what they were saying. Now you can hear people on cellphones but not always see them. There’s something more invasive about hearing someone else talking than there is watching a dumb show. I mean, phone booths are essentially transparent rooms where you could see someone laughing, crying, yelling, but not know the actual details. It allowed your imagination to engage with the community.

Now your imagination is invaded by someone else’s reality. It’s much more literal. So I think there was a genteel sharing of life’s experiences. In a soft-focus kind of way, you could recognize that someone was going through something without having the gory details take over your life. You also had the power to decide whether you wanted to think about them or not. Now, if you’re on a bus reading a book and someone is yakking away behind you, you have no choice but to stop reading and listen to half a conversation.

So I guess cellphones contribute to the loss of distinction between public and private space: the rest of the city should not HAVE to listen to your conversation.

Q: There's a certain love of the analog in this book, and books, of course, are "analog" objects under siege from the digital. As a screenwriter (Ice Age) and now a book author, which medium are you rooting for? Or do you believe screen and page can coexist in the 21st century?

A: I’m not really invested in one medium over another in an objective way. I love books because they’re one of the things I’m used to that gives me pleasure. But I love movies too and plays, music, art, etc... As for reading, itself, I would bet that by the end of the 21st century most people will read primarily digitally, because that's what those people will be used to.

A counter-argument is that I work on the computer all day, so at night, my eyes are too tired to watch TV or look at another screen. And I find reading actual books in the evening much more peaceful. But who knows what screens will look like in 50 years. Perhaps they’ll be equally peaceful to those readers.

I will say, though, that with kids, it’s wonderful to lie in bed with a book and turn the pages, see the pictures, put the bookmark in, look at the cover, see the books all lined up on the shelf. But again, it’s familiar to me.

Q: Do you see this book becoming a series starring other vanishing city objects? Will you do the story of the Lonely Parking Meter, the Lonely Old Newsstand, the Lonely [fill in the blank]?

A: At the moment, no. There was something particular about the phone booth that struck me - the way it stands there in all weather as we walk past, occasionally seeing someone in it, feeling like it’s part of the neighborhood, physically, a noble old soul whom time is passing by, though he still has something to offer. But I’m not interested in general nostalgia trips.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Finally! The drinking game to get you through those CB/SLA meetings: Chug if "The applicant promises to keep the spirit of the previous owner's establishment alive by having the now-deceased previous owner stuffed and mounted over the bar." [EVG]

"I have a feeling that if Andy Warhol were alive he would be spending the summer writing a novel that takes place in real time on Facebook." [NYT]

Following up on my post about the closure of one of the last Andrews Coffee Shops in Manhattan, I set out to find the local chain's remainders. As we learned last week, Andrew Zamel's coffee shops, opened in 1963, once numbered 15. It took 30 years to halve that number to 8 in 1993. Today, there are 2 that I managed to find.

There's one at 35th Street and 7th Avenue and another nearby on 38th, between 7th and 8th. The rest, still listed online, were confirmed closed or didn't answer their phones.

The 35th Street Andrews occupies a large corner spot and was busy with lunchtime customers, most of whom looked like tourists or shoppers spilling over from Macy's.

It was too crowded for me, and too renovated, so I headed over to 38th where I found a smaller, quieter, shabbier Andrews tucked in between zipper shops and sewing machine supply stores on a block bustling with garment business. This was more my speed.

It was blissfully desolate. My BLT and fries came quickly and tasted fine. But I don't sit in restaurants, generally, for the taste of the food. I go for the place itself, for a feeling it gives me, and the feeling in the 38th Street Andrews was a good one.

It had a slightly desultory air about it. No one was pumping happiness into the place. There were no flatscreen TVs screaming and no bouncy music. The song on the radio when I walked in was singing from 1990, "If you don't love me, why don't you let me go?" Here, they let you eat in peace.

The customers did not seem like tourists or shoppers. They seemed like Garment District people. They were mostly single men. The sort of men who wear Hawaiian shirts, gold watches, and fragrant oils in their silver hair. The sort of men who carry their cash in a money clip and call the waitress "Sweetheart."

The customers here are known. The cashier recognizes them, calls the men "Padron." They joke around together at the register.

If I had to bet which Andrews will be next to vanish, I'd say it's 38th Street, for all of the above reasons. It's not loud enough, not obnoxious enough to survive. For some reason, people like to eat in crowds. They like noise with their food. Also, this location seems to depend on the old-school Garment District crowd, and they are vanishing.

So if you're looking for a coffee-shop experience, give Andrews of 38th Street a try. Before it's gone, too.

Friday, August 13, 2010

One of the last Andrews Coffee Shops in the city has closed. A tipster writes in with photos:

"Andrew's Coffee Shop on Pearl and John in the Financial District closed after 31 years... I think they have other locations in NYC... but it was really homey and very 1979 -- don't know if they changed the decor since they opened. But that and the Pearl Diner are/were havens in the soulless corridor there.... A shame."

Are there any Andrews left--or was this the last?

And if you're wondering "Who's Andrew?" as I did, the Times answered in 1993: "Q. Who is Andrew and why does he have so many coffee shops? A. The coffee shops are named after Andrew Zamel, a Palestinian immigrant who came to New York in 1960 and began opening the shops in 1963. At one point there were 15 such coffee shops in Manhattan; now there are eight."

That number is much smaller now. Andrews Coffee Shops have been shuttering one by one for the past few years. Their location on W. 34th closed a year ago. Another on Broadway and 38th shuttered circa 2007 to become, said a Yelper, a Pret a Manger. And in 2005 the one I often frequented on 5th Ave and 19th closed, becoming a White House Black Market wedding boutique, though Apple purportedly holds the lease. (The Times has more on that story.)

Of course, we've been watching the New York coffee shop vanish for awhile now. As The Observer noted in 2007, "the old-fashioned coffee shop, one of New York’s most quintessential and beloved establishments, has become an endangered species, so imperiled that many neo-New Yorkers now consider the phrase 'coffee shop' synonymous with—the horror!—'Starbucks.'"

"Jeremiah Moss does an excellent job of cataloging all that’s constantly being sacrificed to the god of rising rents." --Hugo Lindgren, New York Times Magazine

"No one takes stock of New York's changes with the same mixture of snark, sorrow, poeticism, and lyric wit as Jeremiah Moss... Even as the changes he's cataloging break our hearts a little, it's that kind of lovely, precise writing that makes Moss's blog essential reading." --Village Voice, Best of NY

“Jeremiah Moss…is the defender of all the undistinguished hunks of masonry that lend the streets their rhythm.” --Justin Davidson, New York Magazine